Lin Dan, the world and Olympic champion, had his bid to achieve an open era record of five All England titles shattered by his sixth-seeded compatriot Bao Chun-lei on Friday.
Lin, who had previously appeared a class above the field and seemed odds-on to reach the semi-finals when leading 10-4 in the final game, slipped unaccountably to a 21-16, 17-21, 21-17 defeat.
The greatest player of the modern era seemed unwilling to hit the shuttle down with any frequency and left himself open to attack, allowing Bao, a former world silver medalist, to show how effective he can be.
PHOTO: AFP
“I didn’t think I played that badly,” Lin said. “I was quite good, but halfway through the first game Bao started playing really well.”
Despite that, Lin kept his nose in front all the way though the second game and played an exquisite point to reach game-point, with two velvety half-pace smashes that opened up the court so that he seemed to have everything under control.
He was also moving better than Bao, gliding economically around and accelerating almost at will, leaving no hints of the demise that was to follow.
Lin lost the next seven points to go 11-14 down, suddenly sinking into his shell and producing a passive sequence of rallies to slip to 13-18. He played a brilliant point to get to 15-18, but spent most of the remainder of the match lifting and clearing the shuttle, giving Bao time to find an opening with his clever left-handed angles.
“I have played Lin Dan many times and can’t remember when I last beat him, but I was well rested which I needed to be to play against him. I was able to play a faster game,” Bao said.
Bao next plays Kenichi Tago, the young Japanese player who played at high speed and with great defense to beat Chen Jin, the third-seeded Chinese player who won the 2008 All England, by 22-20, 19-21, 21-13.
The upset could conceivably help Peter Gade, the 33-year-old former world No. 1 who has never relinquished his dream of winning another All England title and who won a thrilling repeat of the final he won in 1999.
Eleven years ago, he defeated Taufik Hidayat in three games when the scoring was 15-up. On Friday, he won 20-22, 22-20, 22-20, coming back from 14-17 in the second game when it seemed that Hidayat’s often impressive attack was going to prevail.
Gade next plays Lee Chong Wei, the top-seeded Malaysian, who beat Shon Wan-ho, the impressively durable South Korean qualifier, 14-21, 21-14, 21-14. Only one Chinese player, Bao, remains in the men’s singles, and two, Wang Yihan, the top-seeded titleholder, and Wang Xin, the Malaysian Super Series champion, in the women’s singles.
China’s chances of winning all five titles took a bigger blow, however, when Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, the world men’s doubles champions, were beaten 21-17, 18-21, 21-18 by Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen in a spectacular finish in which Cai was red-carded for hurling his racket on the next court and kicking his kitbag fiercely into the arena curtains.
Tine Rasmussen, the former All England champion whose career has been threatened by injury, served notice of her desire to regain the title by saving three match-points to beat Lu Lan, the world champion, 16-21, 23-21, 21-11, and reach the semi-finals of the women’s singles.
The victory brought memories of the Dane’s triumph over the Chinese player in the 2008 final, but it looked as though it might be over when Rasmussen went 18-20 down in the second game, having lost the first.
Rasmussen next plays Saina Nehwal, the seventh seeded Indian who won 21-8, 21-14 against Juliana Schenk of Germany.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier